Vending machine manufacturers have developed new and innovative vending equipment in response to market needs and vending operator demands. These innovations have been, for the most part, adopted by the vending industry. This trend has been influenced by accelerating rates of technological innovation in electronic and electro-mechanical component industries. Availability of new technologies has given vending machine manufacturers appropriate tools to address many requirements of vending operators. Advances in electronics are now enabling use of computer controls and data acquisition systems within each vending machine. Many vending machines include vending machine controllers based on the International Multi-drop Bus Interface Standards developed by the National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA). Some of the latest vending machines make it possible for vending operators to download data and information associated with sales, inventory, and equipment status at remote locations onto portable computers or transmit vending machine data and information from a remote location to a central location such as a network operations center.
The Uniform Communication Standard (UCS) was established during the mid-1960s to facilitate and improve data transfer within the grocery industry. The Uniform Communication Standard may be generally described a subset of ANSI ASCX12 national standard for electronic data interchange (EDI). UCS implementation guidelines and communication standards are now used to support transactions associated with manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, shipping companies, brokers, public warehouses, service merchandising and many other industries. Business functions such as data administration, ordering, logistics, financial and other support activities are routinely completed using UCS guidelines and standards.
UCS standards have been applied to direct store delivery (DSD) transactions. UCS transaction sets have been developed to exchange delivery information and adjustments between buyers and sellers or suppliers using electronic devices including, but not limited to, handheld computers and personal computers at the time of delivery at individual store locations or other individual facilities. The UCS/DSD software applications often have two components sometimes referred to as DEX/UCS (Direct Exchange) linking computers of suppliers and sellers to facilitate exchange of delivery data at specific locations and NEX/UCS (Network Exchange) linking office computers and large enterprise communication networks with each other. DEX/UCS software applications are frequently used with computerized delivery and receiving systems for a wide variety of products, services and industries. The previously described standards and related software applications have been used to monitor, record and evaluate sales of products at remotely located equipment such as vending machines.
Previous methods of estimating consumer demand at remotely located equipment such as vending machines often included measuring product inventory at a first time and measuring the same product inventory at a second time, often several days later. Total product sales may then be calculated by subtracting the second product inventory from the first product inventory. The rate of sales or sales rate for the product may be calculated as the total product sales divided by the number of days between recording the first product inventory and the second product inventory. The resulting sales rate, typically stated on a daily basis, is often used to project future consumer demand for the product at the remotely located equipment. The sales rate may also be used to schedule service calls at the remotely located equipment to restock inventory, refill an associated coin changer and perform other routine maintenance at the remotely located equipment.